I think there should be pictures in the Featured Blogs, for sure. But I like the way the Recent Posts feed looks without them. So a combination of the two you showed! I also second Belle's suggestion to add a little space between columns--it will also help with the busy-ness, I think.

Gave you 10 more pixels of whitespace per column.

New? I added those early yesterday :P You must have been caching the old stylesheet!

I like the pictures. It's looking great!

Wish I could get this kind of IT support at Big State U...

Looks good to me mate! Much less cluttered and more navigable. It seems intuitive to search around a bit now.

So is there anything else that needs updating? Are we all generally happy now? Remember, you'll be removed from the main page writer list if you don't post for 2 weeks, and the "discussions" "popular" and "best rated" sections are generated only using posts from the last week. Do you think we need an All Time best rated/most discussions? Save that for the blog page redesign?? :P

Do you think we need an All Time best rated/most discussions? Save that for the blog page redesign??

Save it for the blog page. I like the main page - as far as I'm concerned there's nothing to add or change.

looking good!